The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

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Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Should Robert Mueller Be Investigated for Violating Civil Liberties? - Alan M. Dershowitz

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Too many former civil libertarians
are prepared to sacrifice civil liberties and the quest for truth on the
altar of "Get Trump."

Just as the first casualty of war is truth, so, too, the first casualty of hyper-partisan politics is civil liberties.

Many traditional civil libertarians have allowed their strong
anti-Trump sentiments to erase their long-standing commitment to neutral
civil liberties. They are now so desperate to get Trump that they are
prepared to compromise the most basic due process rights. They forget
the lesson of history that such compromises made against one's enemy are
often used as precedents against one's friends. As Robert Bolt put it
in the play and movie A Man for all Seasons:

Roper: So now you would give the Devil benefit of Law!Thomas Moore: Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that?Thomas Moore: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned
round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This
country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not
God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it —
d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow
then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

But today's fair weather civil libertarians are unwilling to give
President Trump – who they regard as the devil -- the "benefit of law"
and civil liberties.

Consider the issue of criticizing Robert Mueller, the Special
counsel. Any criticism or even skepticism regarding Mueller's history is
seen as motivated by a desire to help Trump. Mueller was an Assistant
US attorney in Boston, the head of its criminal division, the head of
the criminal division in Main Justice and the Director of the FBI during
the most scandalous miscarriage of justice in the modern history of the
FBI. Four innocent people were framed by the FBI in order to protect
mass murdering gangsters who were working as FBI informers while they
were killing innocent people. An FBI agent, who is now in prison, was
tipping off Whitey Bulger as to who might testify against him so that
these individuals could be killed. He also tipped off Bulger allowing
him to escape and remain on the lam for 16 years.

What responsibility, if any, did Robert Mueller, who was in key
positions of authority and capable of preventing these horrible
miscarriages, have in this sordid incident? A former member of the
parole board – a liberal Democrat who also served as mayor of
Springfield, Massachusetts – swears that he saw a letter from Robert
Mueller urging the denial of release for at least one of these
wrongfully convicted defendants. When he went back to retrieve the
letter, it was not in the file. This should surprise no one since Judge
Mark Wolf (himself a former prosecutor), who conducted extensive
hearings about this entire mess, made the following findings:

"The files relating to the Wheeler murder, and the FBI's
handling of them, exemplify recurring irregularities with regard to the
preparation, maintenance, and production in this case of documents
damaging to Flemmi and Bulger. First, there appears to be a pattern of
false statements placed in Flemmi's informant file to divert attention
from his possible crimes and/or FBI misconduct....Second, contrary to the FBI's usual policy and practice, all but one
of the reports containing Halloran's allegations against Bulger and
Flemmi were not indexed and placed in an investigative file referencing
their names. Thus, those documents were not discoverable by a standard
search of the FBI's indices. Similar irregularities in indexing and,
therefore, access occurred with regard to information that the FBI
received concerning an extortion by Bulger of Hobart Willis and from
Joseph Murray concerning the murder of Brian Halloran, among other
things.Third, when documents damaging to the FBI were found by the Bureau,
they were in some instances not produced to the defendants or the court
at the time required by the court's Orders."[1]

Judge Wolf also made a finding that directly references Mueller's state of knowledge regarding the "history":

"The source also claimed to have information that Bulger
and Pat Nee had murdered Halloran and Bucky Barrett. The source
subsequently said that there was an eyewitness to the Halloran shooting
who might come forward, and elaborated that: "there is a person named
John, who claims he talked to Whitey and Nee as they sat in the car
waiting for Halloran on Northern Avenue. He sits in a bar and talks
about it. He saw the whole operation". The source added that the person
providing the information to the source "will be willing to talk to you
(authorities) soon." On February 3, 1988, Weld directed Keeney to have
the information that he had received sent to the United States Attorney
in Boston, Frank McNamara, and to the Strike Force Chief, O'Sullivan.
Weld added that: "Both O'Sullivan and [Assistant United States Attorney]
Bob Mueller are well aware of the history, and the information sounds
good."[2]

It is not the beyond the realm of possibility therefore that Mueller
wrote this letter, even if it is no longer in the files. If in fact
Mueller wrote such a letter, without thoroughly investigating the
circumstances, he surely bears some responsibility. Moreover, it is
widely believed among Boston law enforcement observers that the FBI was
not really looking for Whitey Bulger during the years that Mueller was
its Director. It is believed that the FBI was fearful about what Bulger
would disclose about his relationship with agents over the years. It
took a member of the US Marshall's office to find Bulger who was hiding
in plain view in Santa Monica, California.

Recently, a former federal judge, who used to be a civil libertarian, rushed to Mueller's defense,
declaring "without equivocation" that Mueller "had no involvement" in
the massive miscarriage of justice. Her evidence is the lack of evidence
in the files. But no civil libertarian should place such great trust in
government files, especially in light of Judge Wolf's findings. They
should join my call for an objective investigation by the Inspector
General of the Justice Department before they assure the public "without
equivocation" that Mueller had absolutely "no involvement." But these
"Get Trump At Any Cost" partisans have rejected my call for an
investigation, out of fear that it may turn up information that might
tarnish the image of the Special Counsel who is investigating Trump.
Instead they criticize those of us who point out that Mueller was "at
the center" of the Justice Department and FBI, while this miscarriage of
justice occurred. All civil libertarians should want the truth about
this sordid episode -- and Mueller's possible role in it -- regardless
of its impact, if any, on the Trump investigation. Mueller too should
welcome an objective investigation, which might eliminate any doubt
about his role in this travesty. But too many former civil libertarians
are prepared to sacrifice civil liberties and the quest for truth on the
altar of "Get Trump."

Robert Mueller. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This is all too typical of the about-face many civil libertarians have taken since Trump became president. I have previously written
about the ACLU's abdication of its traditional role in challenging
governmental overreaching. For the new ACLU getting Trump trumps civil
liberties.

It is ironic to see many right-wingers being the ones to criticize
overreach by law enforcement, while many left-wingers now defend such
overreaching. Hypocrisy and selective outrage abounds, as neutral
principles take a back seat. Conservatives used to say that "a
conservative is a liberal who has been mugged." I would respond that "a
liberal is a conservative who is being audited or whose kid was busted
for pot." Today a civil libertarian is a conservative whose candidate is
being investigated, while a law-and-order type is a liberal who wants
to see Trump charged or impeached.

I am a liberal who voted against Trump but who insists that his civil liberties must be respected for all of our sake.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor
of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of Trumped Up, How
Criminalization of Political Differences endangers Democracy.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12215/mueller-investigation-civil-liberties Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.